Natalie Imbruglia gives rare insight into undergoing IVF as a single mother at 44 as she says 'it was brutal' but insists she did not choose it over being with a man

Natalie Imbruglia has admitted she found IVF 'brutal' as she opened up about her experience in a candid discussion on Thursday. 

The Torn hitmaker, now 51, welcomed her son Max back in 2019 after undergoing IVF with a sperm donor. 

And in the latest episode of How To Fail with Elizabeth Day, the mother-of-one reflected on her IVF experience as she said: 'It's pretty brutal.'

Advising women considering IVF to make sure they are well informed of the process, she explained: 'What I will say is that it's really important to educate yourself and to ask a lot of questions and for women to share. 

'There's a lot that I didn't know or understand about that process and there's a lot of trauma involved along the process of learning things that someone could have told me.'

Referring to the two week waiting process between the embryos being implanted and finding out if she was pregnant, Natalie said: 'In fact, I remember when I found out I was pregnant, the one thing in my mind was every woman on the planet who was still waiting. 

'Oh, that makes me emotional thinking about it'. 

Discussing the hormones you are put on, Natalie continued: 'It's also the in between is the hard bit. 

'It's the freefall that they don't prepare you for. They don't kind of wean you off of it. It's just like sorry, it didn't work and then stop. 

'And you've got this whole period of time that you have to pull yourself together. And they don't really speak about that. I don't think you're mentally prepared for that.'

Elizabeth added: 'And the two week wait that you have before finding out is pretty tough. It's the longest time you'll ever experience.'

Warning that there is a lot doctors won't tell you, Natalie advised: 'I think I would just say make sure you are really well informed and that you talk to women who've been through it because there is a lot that the doctors won't tell you and don't go through it on your own. 

'Have some really good friends that you can call and who can help you through it because it can be quite lonely, can't it?'

Natalie also hit back at assumptions that she chose to go down the IVF route over being with a man.

'I think it's really interesting that people frame it or they did with me that somehow I'd chosen this over being with a man. 

And for all the men out there, that's absolute rubbish. Like it wasn't some kind of "I don't need a man or you know women can do this and not have a man in their life."

'It really upset me... because that was not the case. We just find ourselves in a situation where there's a biological clock and you know a decision needs to be made.

'Thank God for medicine that we're able to have that option because women before us didn't have that option. 

'So yeah, just wanted to say that for the men because it makes me really sad that that's just really not fair on men to say that that it was a choice like that.'